Bachelor Thesis Bachelor's Programme in IT-Forensics and Information Security Pushing Traffic into the Digital Age A Communication Technology Comparison and Security Assessment Digital Forensics, 15 credits Halmstad 2020-05-27 Christoffer Krantz, Gabriela Vukota HALMSTAD UNIVERSITY II Pushing Traffic into the Digital Age A Communication Technology Comparison and Security Assessment Christoffer Krantz and Gabriela Vukota Bachelor of Science with a major in Digital Forensics School of information technology Halmstad University Supervisor: Erik Järpe Examiner: Stefan Axelsson III IV PREFACE We would like to thank Eric Järpe and Cristofer Englund for being instrumental in the direction this thesis took, as well as being available for discussions and feedback when it was needed. Additional thanks are directed to Dr Steven Logghe, Bas Heutinck and Erik Lindbloom who gave us valuable insight in how the technology is being used today and giving us additional lines of inquiry to further investigate. V ABSTRACT With the rapid advances of technology, digitisation of many facets of our existence is taking place in an attempt to improve everyday life. The automotive industry is following suit, attempting to introduce connected traffic technology that is meant to improve traffic fluidity and safety. To facilitate this, connected vehicles aim to create solutions for the sharing of information between other vehicles, infrastructure - such as traffic light controllers, and pedestrians. In an attempt to further investigate the connected vehicle landscape of today, the thesis compared the two most prominent technologies, DSRC and cellular communication. An essential part of this comparison was highlighting the potential attacks that the two technologies could be exposed to. This was done in order to open up a discussion on what technology is the most suitable to focus on for the future both in terms of viability and security. DSRC has been considered the prominent communication technology for connected vehicles, but the development has stagnated. As such, the ever-evolving cellular technology is looking like the superior technology. This, however, is reliant on 5G delivering the speeds, stability and security promised. The state of constant vehicular connection is going to lead to many issues and concerns, both for the privacy of the individual but also the safety of the public. While connected traffic aims to solve a number of issues from traffic accidents to emissions - if the security of the communication is not constantly evolving to meet the rapid development of new technology, the consequences of connecting such a delicate system might nullify the potential benefits. Keywords: connected vehicles, connected traffic, IoV, V2X, C-V2X, WAVE, DSRC, WiFi, cellular communication VI V TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 History of Connected Vehicles 1 1.2 History of Traffic Light Controllers 3 1.3 Thesis Statement 3 1.3.1 Questions to Answer 4 1.4 Purpose 4 1.5 Problematisation of thesis statement 4 1.6 Demarcations 5 2. METHOD 6 2.1 Literature study 6 2.2 Comparing vehicular communication technologies 6 2.3 Interview 7 2.4 Problematisation of Method 7 2.5 Positioning of Method 7 2.6 Ethical standpoint 8 3. THEORY 9 3.1 Forms of Vehicle Connectivity 9 3.2 Connected Vehicles 10 3.2.1 Connected Vehicles Functions 11 3.2.2 Connected Vehicles Security 14 3.3 Traffic Light Communication 18 3.3.1 Connected Traffic Light Controllers 18 3.4 Vehicular Ad-hoc network 20 3.5 Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) 21 3.6 Cellular Communication 22 3.6.1 How Does Cellular Communication Work? 22 3.6.2 Cellular Communication Challenges and its Solutions 24 3.7 Related work 25 4. RESULTS 27 4.1 Comparing DSRC and C-V2X 27 4.2 Security Challenges in Vehicular Communication 28 4.3 Possible Attacks on Connected Traffic 30 4.4 Examples of Current Industry Practices 34 5. DISCUSSION 36 5.1 Cellular Communication as The Preferred Technology 36 5.2 Keeping Security as The Main Focus 37 5.3 The Future of Connected Traffic 38 5.4 Ethical Aspects of Connecting Traffic 39 5.5 Future work 40 6. CONCLUSION 41 7. REFERENCES 43 VI VII DICTIONARY CAN: Controller area network, a vehicle bus that allows microcontrollers and devices to communicate with each other’s applications without a host computer. C-V2X: Cellular vehicle-to-everything, describes a 3GPP standard communication ​ technology. DSRC: Dedicated short-range communication, the technology utilising WiFi for V2V ​ communication. ECU: Electrical control unit, any embedded system in automotive electronics that controls ​ one or more of the electrical systems or subsystems in a vehicle. IoT: Internet of Things, the interconnection of devices via the internet. ​ IoV: Internet of Vehicles, subsection of IoT relating to connected vehicles. ​ ITS: Intelligent transportation system, systems that provide innovative solutions to improve ​ transportation. LTE: Long term evolution is a wireless broadband communication protocol for mobile ​ devices. OBD-II: On-board diagnostics, a system to provide diagnostic information about the various ​ other systems in a vehicle. Telematics: Telematics is the merger of telecommunications and informatics. ​ V2X: Vehicle to everything, the umbrella term describing all different types of vehicle ​ communication. VANET: Vehicular ad-hoc network, spontaneous creation of vehicular wireless networks. ​ VIII 1. INTRODUCTION The intended purpose of developing technology to become more and more digitalised is to deliver benefits that improve aspects of everyday life and increase security. One area that is receiving this treatment is connected traffic, an umbrella term for all technologies that are working together to digitise traffic. Some of those technologies are “Connected Vehicles” and “Connected Traffic Light Controllers” which are the main focuses of this thesis. They are vehicles and traffic infrastructure connected to the internet, allowing communication and sharing of data with and to other vehicles, infrastructure and personal wireless devices [1]. Looking at the security behind this type of communication is essential if the benefits it can provide is to outweigh the disadvantages. The potential risks involved, both individual privacy concerns and potential for interference that causes accidents, could be severe if the security falls behind in development. 1.1 History of Connected Vehicles The first connected vehicles on the market were made by General Motors, working with Motorola Automotive when the OnStar was introduced in 1996 [2]. This was a safety system installed in Cadillac cars of the DeVille, Seville and Eldorado models where the telematics system enabled voice calls to a call centre that contacted emergency responders when an airbag was deployed. Over time, additional capabilities were introduced including GPS locations and the ability to have voice and data simultaneously. A few years later, more connected vehicle services began to be introduced. Such as remote diagnostics by Continental in 2001. By 2003, vehicle health reports, turn-by-turn directions and network access devices were in the works. Data-only telematics in 2007, and access to 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) WiFi hotspots offered by Audi A3 in 2014 as well as the first mass deployment of it, by General Motors. By 2015, more than 1 million vehicles in the U.S. and Canada had Onstar 4G LTE [2]. That same year, OnStar celebrated over 1 billion requests being handled from customers by phone, mobile app or wireless services in their vehicles. All of the safety and security services 1 provided by OnStar at the time of writing are Automatic Crash Response, Emergency Services, Roadside Assistance, Crisis Assist, Stolen Vehicle Assistance and Turn-By-Turn Navigation [3]. All of the mentioned services aid in, among other situations, helping customers with crashes, avoiding tornadoes, vehicle diagnostics and directions. Connected vehicles are an essential element in the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), in which the Internet of Things (IoT) is the foundation. IoT is a network of interconnected things, such as computing devices, sensors, actuators, machines and even people. This concept of interconnecting devices is not new. The first implementation happened in 1982, when a coke vending machine was connected to the internet so that the availability of coke in the machine could be checked [4, p. 4]. IoT allows all kinds of things to interconnect with the purpose of developing smarter environments. With time, new technologies and mechanisms have been developed and introduced. Wireless technologies, machine-to-machine communication (M2M), machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud storage are some of the capabilities of today’s IoT. In the last two decades, other than resulting in smart homes, smart healthcare and smart manufacturing - the IoT has also converged mentioned technologies to establish smart traffic in the form of smart roads, intelligent transportation systems (ITS) and IoV. ● Smart roads have sensory systems embedded to warn vehicles of road incidents and provide information on traffic situations. ● ITS enables safer and smarter use of transport networks. ● IoV enables vehicles’ to share information that is collected via the vehicles’ devices to facilitate an easier and safer driving experience. Car manufacturers that today are some of the most leading in the IoV vision include: General Motors, Google, BMW, Audi, Mercedes Benz, Tesla, VW, Jaguar, Porsche and Nissan. By 2020, according to CMSWire, more than 380 million cars are expected to be driven. By 2021, 2 according to Business Insider, 94 million cars are expected to be shipped where 82% of those will be connected [4, p. 5]. 1.2 History of Traffic Light Controllers In 1913, Ford started mass producing their car, the Model T. For the first time, cars were cheap and reliable enough for widespread use. This, however, came before any form of mechanised traffic light controllers were available. Instead, police officers were sent to intersections to try and coordinate the traffic flow [5]. A few early attempts at adopting railroad practices for intersections were tried.